Tommy Weir on leadership: the rational case for using your intuition

AI was recently asked: “How much should a CEO rely on intuition?” My gut reaction was it depends on how good his intuition is.

This is a very important question facing you as a leader, knowing when to trust your gut and when not to can make the difference between being right or wrong. A quick review of the research says the jury is still out on whether leaders should rely on their intuition. And I guess my own jury is still out, as there are advantages and disadvantages to intuitive leadership.

It is tempting to argue that leaders should never trust their gut, thereby implying they should make decisions based solely on objective, logical analysis. Quantitative scientists say leaders use intuition because of their cognitive limitations and that this results in less than desirable outcomes. This thinking holds that intuition is a strategy of last resort and should be employed only when you cannot use a theoretical basis or rational thinking.

And yet we can’t get away from the influence of our gut instincts. As rational as one wants to believe that he is, the gut can still guide the brain, bringing intuition into play for all.

For instance, in my opinion there was no rational basis for the famed statement by Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, that: “There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share.” That was pure and purely wrong intuition.

Intuition is a leader’s ability to understand and decide on a situation without apparent reasoning. It is an inner perception versus the clear use of reasoning and theoretical models. Intuition provides views, understandings, judgements or beliefs that cannot in every case be empirically verified or rationally justified. This is what the quantitative scientists and rationally oriented people struggle with. They perceive intuition to be irrational, and instead prefer a fact-based approach to leading.

My analysis of intuitive leadership aligns with the scholarly research. There are times it is good and times it is abysmal. The one variable that increases my comfort with a leader’s reliance on intuition is experience. You may be asking: “Why?”

Not surprisingly, a leader’s success rate is several times higher for decisions made in the fields in which they have expert knowledge or in which they have accumulated enough experience to strengthen their gut. If intuition is indeed the hand-maiden of experience, it stands to reason that leaders who have 10,000-plus hours of experience would have higher quality intuition, as K Anders Ericsson, a professor of psychology at Florida State University, recognises as essential for mastery.

This requires more than just domain knowledge and even casual experience. Intuition improves with deep introspection – reflection on your experience. It is through the reflection that you are able to learn from experience and as a result see and make sense of patterns and have a better hunch.

The idea is that once a leader gains advantageous experience, either through first-hand exposure or real-life work, he gains an advantage that will compound over time into an increasingly larger advantage, thus creating a better intuition.

It turns out, then, that it is not simply a question of whether a decision-maker should trust his or her “gut” or not. It depends, and experience is one differentiator.

One of the risks with intuitive leadership arises when it is practised by people with limited experience (although they might well think themselves experienced). The other risk is an over-reliance on rationalism reducing the value of intuition.

Experience should be built over the years and on top of the rational approach. Then a leader has the requisite experience to practise intuition.

What we are really speaking of is more attuned to wisdom than instinct. Wisdom comes from reflecting on and learning from accumulated experiences. As leaders, this is exactly what we need to do to have a “good gut”.

Tommy Weir is an adviser on leading in fast-growth and emerging-market leadership, CEO coach and author of 10 Tips for Leading in the Middle East and other leadership writings. He is the founder of the Emerging Markets Leadership Center.

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